Professional Documents
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with below-cost commodities, depressing prices and un- box payments probably have only a minor eect on prodercutting producers in poor countries a practice known duction and trade, others have a signicant impact. Acas dumping.
cording to countries latest ocial reports to the WTO,
the United States provided $76 billion in green box payments in 2007 over nine-tenths of its total spending
2.2 Market Access
while the EU notied 48 billion ($91 billion) in 2005,
or around half of all support provided by the bloc. In the
Market access is the second pillar of the AoA, and case of the EU, a large and growing share of green box
refers to the reduction of tari (or non-tari) barriers to spending was on decoupled income support, which the
trade by WTO member-states. The 1995 AoA required book shows can have a particularly signicant impact on
tari reductions of:
production and trade.[1]
Third World Network states that; This has allowed the
36% average reduction by developed countries, with
rich countries to maintain or raise their very high subsia minimum per tari line reduction of 15% over six
dies by switching from one kind of subsidy to another...
years.
like a magicians trick. This is why after the Uruguay
24% average reduction by developing countries with Round the total amount of subsidies in OECD countries
a minimum per tari line reduction of 10% over ten have gone up instead of going down, despite the apparent
promise that Northern subsidies will be reduced. Moreyears.
over, Martin Khor argues that the green and blue box subsidies can be just as trade-distorting - as the protection
Least Developed Countries (LDCs) were exempted from
is better disguised, but the eect is the same.[4]
tari reductions, but either had to convert nontari barriers to tarisa process called taricationor bind At the WTO meeting in Hong Kong in 2005, countries
their taris, creating a ceiling which could not be in- agreed to eliminate export subsidy and equivalent payments by 2013. However, Oxfam has stated that EU excreased in future.
port subsidies account for only 3.5% of its overall agricultural support. In the US, export subsidies for cotton
2.3 Export subsidies
were announced to be removed but these represent 10%
of overall spending which does not address the core is"Export subsidies" is the third pillar of the AoA. The sue of domestic payments that have been proven to distort
1995 AoA required developed countries to reduce export trade and facilitate dumping.[5]
subsidies by at least 36% (by value) or by at least 21%
(by volume) over the six years. In the case of developing
country Members, the required cuts are 14% (by volume) 4 Mechanisms
for developing
and 24% (by value) over 10 years.
countries
Criticism
The AoA has been criticised by civil society groups for reducing tari protections for small farmers a key source
of income for developing countries. At the same time,
the AoA has allowed rich countries to continue paying
their farmers massive subsidies which developing countries cannot aord.
The Agriculture Agreement has been criticised by NGO's
for categorizing subsidies into trade-distorting domestic
subsidies (the amber box) which have to be reduced,
and non-trade distorting subsidies (blue and green boxes)
which escape disciplines and thus can be increased. As
ecient agricultural exporters press WTO members to
reduce their trade-distorting amber box and blue box
support, developed countries green box spending has increased a trend widely expected to continue. A book
from the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable
Development shows how green box subsidies do in fact
distort trade, aect developing country farmers and can
also harm the environment. While some types of green
3
this question, some negotiating parties claiming that SSM
could be repeatedly and excessively invoked, distorting
the normal ow of trade in the process. In turn, the G33 negotiating bloc of developing countries, which has
been the major proponent of the SSM, has argued that
breaches of bound taris should not be ruled out if the
SSM is to be an eective remedy.[6] A study by ICTSD
simulated the consequences of SSM on global trade for
both developed and developing countries.[6]
4.2
Special Products
See also
Peace Clause
World Trade Organization
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Green Box: Ensuring Coherence with Sustainable Development
Goals by Ricardo Melndez-Ortiz, Christophe Bellmann, Jonathan Hepburn, September 2009.
WTO Negotiations on Agriculture and Developing Countries by Anwarul Hoda and Ashok Gulati,
(2007) Johns Hopkins University Press
References
[7] Indicators for the Selection of Agricultural Special Products: Some Empirical Evidence, Information Note. Number 1. July 2007. by ICTSD and FAO
7 External links
Text of the Agreement on Agriculture: html(1),
html(2), doc, pdf
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,
Agreement on Agriculture Basics 2003.
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, WTO
Agreement on Agriculture: A Decade of Dumping,
Feb 2005.
Devinder Sharma, The Indian Experience of Liberalisation of Agriculture, Aug 17, 2005.
Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Green Box: Ensuring Coherence with Sustainable Development
Goals, ICTSD, September 2009.
World Trade Organization and Agriculture: Selective Bibliography, prepared by Hugo H.R. van
Hamel, Peace Palace Library
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Simulations on the Special Safeguard
Mechanism: a look at the December 2008 Draft
Agricultural Modalities, April 2010, by Raul Montemayor, Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives,
Inc. (FFFCI)
Agritrade website for ACP-EU agriculture and sheries trade issues.
8.1
Text
8.2
Images
8.3
Content license